The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Computer users increasingly turn to networked social media computing systems for relevant information from municipal officials such as police officers, firemen, mayors, city council members, leaders or administrators in municipal departments or services agencies, and others. Geographic proximity is typically important to the overall relevance of information that is sent.
To date, social media tools have provided little more than large broadcast channels for these types of senders, allowing them to aggregate all information into a single monolithic feed. For example, a mayor might have a website, social media page, or content feed that is public, or available to anyone who subscribes. However, not all the information that a particular sender communicates is always relevant to every user. Users may be presented with large amounts of information with extremely low relevance, such as a notice for a street closure on the other side of town, or a burglary that occurred 15 miles away. There is a need for improved computer-based systems and methods to allow municipal officials to narrowcast information to a geographically constrained set of recipients for whom it is relevant.